The end of May 2010 marks the beginning of a new era for the Eternal City projecting Rome into the world of avant-garde art and architecture. The cradle of Classicism and Baroque, revered for its past and wealth of art and architecture, Rome now looks toward to take her place among the capitals of contemporary art alongside New York, Paris and London with new contemporary museums and contemporary art events.
The first event is the long awaited opening of MAXXI, the National Museum of XXI Century Art designed by the Anglo-Iranian architect Zaha Hadid, which takes place on May 30 with the launch of the project “Space”, the first thematic display of collections of art (Alighiero Boetti, Anish Kapoor, William Kentridge, Sol Lewitt, Giuseppe Penone, Grazia Toderi, and Francesco Vezzoli among others) and architecture inspired by the fluid forms of Zaha Hadid as an interpretation of the museum’s interdisciplinary vocation. It took 11 years and 150 million euros to build the coiled, concrete 27,000 square meter structure dubbed “the silvery boa” that houses two museums, MAXXI Art and MAXXI Architecture, and provides areas for live performances. Here follow a photo gallery from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. To enjoy ItalyTravelista’s MaXXI photo gallery visit my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=125761&id=1518296367&l=4b0a747a19
Two other exceptional events taking place from May 27 to 30 will make of Rome the global capital of contemporary art, at least for a week.
Prior to the official opening of Macro Summer on June 1st modern art lovers on May 29 and 30 have the opportunity to tour the new wing of MACRO, Rome’s Museum of Contemporary Art, which will offer additional space with respect to the gallery housed in the old Peroni beer distillery. Beside enjoying the beautiful new wing designed by Odile Decq visitors will also be able to preview the exhibits in MACRO’s Via Reggio Emilia galleries. These include: “Aaron Young: Slippery When Wet”, “Jacob Hashimoto: Silence Still Governs Our Consciousness”, “Jorge Peris: Micro, Aureo, Adela”, “João Louro: My Dark Places”, “Oscar Savio: Architecture in Black and White” while works by three Italians, Gilberto Zorio, Luca trevisani and Alfredo Pirri, complete the line up.
The other event is the 3rd edition of the international art fair and festival “Roma. The Road to Contemporary Art”. This four-day art fair, held in the pavilions of the former Testaccio slaughterhouse, will host around 70 international galleries offering a rich program of events, starred chef’s dinners, guided tours, meetings, conversations, presentations, artistic and musical performances, concerts, dj-sets, and video projections to animate daily the fair grounds at Macro Testaccio. Beside the Fair coordinates a set of events and exhibitions held around Rome. Cose Mai Viste (Things you have never seen), Accademia delle Accademie, Spirito, hosted in the Monumental complex of Santo Spirito in Sassia, Piazza d’Arte at the Casa dell’Architettura-Acquario Romano and the new program Academies Feast developed in cooperation with 9 among the most important international Academies and Cultural Institutes in Rome.
Despite nearly three thousand years of history Rome still has the strength to reinvent herself offering exciting new art venues and events amid the glories of antiquities.
MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Art
via Guido Reni, 4a
www.maxxi.parc.beniculturali.it
MACRO
Via Reggio Emilia, 54
www.macro.roma.museum
Roma. The road to contemporary art
MACRO Testaccio
Piazza Orazio Giustiniani, 4
www.romacontemporary.it
Would you like to share your Italy travel tips with us? Please write us your comment and we’ll be happy to post it!
Ciao from Rome:-)
Nancy Aiello
Join ItalyTravelista on Twitter
© Copyright 2010, Nancy Aiello Tours
Since 1997 Nancy Aiello Tours specializes in personalized private guided Vatican, Rome & Italy Tours for Leisure & Business Travelers including exhibition and contemporary art guided tours led by qualified official Rome tour guides.
New articles are published on our site weekly, sometimes daily. To keep up to date with our news, tips and current events, please sign up for ItalyTravelista free RSS feed.
Tour Italy at Your Own Pace with Nancy Aiello Tours
If you are interested in publishing a version of this article please contact Nancy Aiello Tours.
Once inside we were truly amazed by the jewels on display! I would say thrilled by the amount and the quality of what was shown to us mortals!!! Precious stones of all kinds were just few inches away from my fingers and my neck… huge yellow diamonds, deep green emeralds, dark red ruby and more colorful stones all mounted on platinum & gold!
